SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Today I want to talk about tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about hardship.
SPEAKER_01: Just two weeks ago, Jim Cooley in our church was sitting right over here in this area, and he just fell over in church.
SPEAKER_01: And we have so many EMTs, so many firefighters, so many nurses and doctors.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was taken care of really fast and really well.
SPEAKER_01: I went out after the sermon to see how he was doing in the lobby, and here was a you know, the fire was here, and um and most of the guys in the fire department uh that came were all members of the road, and then probably two-thirds of the guys that were working on Jim were in the fire department.
SPEAKER_01: So everybody knew each other.
SPEAKER_01: I walked into a fraternity party, um, and everybody knew what they were doing.
SPEAKER_01: It was really exciting, actually.
SPEAKER_01: Um he was well taken care of.
SPEAKER_01: But life's hard.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you don't know what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: Um, some of you may get a tumor, some of you may get cancer.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we go through things that are really, really difficult, and life is malevolent.
SPEAKER_01: Life is just difficult.
SPEAKER_01: And I trained my kids that way.
SPEAKER_01: I just said, look, life's hard.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and and if you think it's gonna be easy, then it's gonna be harder.
SPEAKER_01: But if you'll think of it as hard, then it'll be a lot easier.
SPEAKER_01: So um, Paul here in Romans is showing the sanctification grace of what can happen where we can try actually triumph in tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot of women in here, and my daughter, my first daughter is Anna, and she had her first child after 60 hours of labor, premature, and so I'm not gonna ask for a show of hands, but you guys that have had kids know what that's like.
SPEAKER_01: So we're born into labor.
SPEAKER_01: You're born into labor pains, and you're born into tribulation, and life's just not fair.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
SPEAKER_01: And so Job, I think, speaks it well when he said in Job 5.7, for affliction does not come from the dust.
SPEAKER_01: Affliction doesn't just come from the dust, nor does trouble just spring out of the ground.
SPEAKER_01: No, man is born into trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Man is born in trouble as the sparks fly upward.
SPEAKER_01: So the picture here is that you're sitting around a fire pit and you got the fire going up, and just as you have a fire and sparks go up, that's trouble.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have trouble.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a happy-go-lucky, everything's going your way, single person, just get married and find out what it's really like.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And then if you can survive that, then you have kids and hella, right?
SPEAKER_01: So this is the way it is, you know, this is struggles and tribulations, but God has a purpose in it.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to Romans 5, that's where we are.
SPEAKER_01: And Ryan did a masterful job of covering verses 1 and 2.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read them again in the context of where we're going with tribulations and struggles.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So there is a there is a peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it says.
SPEAKER_01: You have a peace with God when you give your heart to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're here today and you've not given your heart to Christ, you don't even have peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're still in enmity.
SPEAKER_01: You're still fighting against God because you don't have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing, healthy relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: So you should do that.
SPEAKER_01: So you should receive Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's really smart to do.
SPEAKER_01: But that's peace with God.
SPEAKER_01: And there's a grace that comes with it.
SPEAKER_01: For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourself, but the gift of God.
SPEAKER_01: So there's what we call salvation grace.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's speaking of here.
SPEAKER_01: But then verse 2, he switches gears to move toward his point.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says: Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is different.
SPEAKER_01: This is a peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a peace with God, and there's a peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: So the peace with God is when you get saved.
SPEAKER_01: You're now reconciled with God.
SPEAKER_01: But but living it out's the hard part, right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, living it out is where we learn to grow with the grace of God to have the peace of God when we go through life.
SPEAKER_01: Life happens.
SPEAKER_01: And so there's almost an idol in American Christianity of evangelism.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, like the peace with God is way more emphasized than the peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's a problem.
SPEAKER_01: If we took all the statistics from Louis Palau, Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Campus Crusade, Navigators, Greg Laurie, all these evangelists, we've saved America like 10 times over.
SPEAKER_01: But if you look at the culture, you go, there's a big disconnect here.
SPEAKER_01: What is going on?
SPEAKER_01: You have all these crusades, all these people coming forward, and there's no change in their life.
SPEAKER_01: Because we've emphasized peace with God, but not the peace of God.
SPEAKER_01: So the grace of God, on the one hand, I'm gonna call it salvation grace, brings you into the fold, but there's another kind of grace.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the grace of God that empowers you presently.
SPEAKER_01: It's when you're going through hard things and you call out to God and suddenly there's a peace that surpasses all understanding.
SPEAKER_01: That's the sanctification grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not the salvation grace of God, you got that.
SPEAKER_01: But now the grace, see, see, salvation grace comes from the outside in when you get saved, but sanctification grace comes from within you where Christ, listen, he's forming himself in you.
SPEAKER_01: He has to use tribulations, he has to use difficulties, or you'll depend on you.
SPEAKER_01: So God puts you into situations that are way above your pay grade, that are air, you never you never signed up for this, but God signed you up for it.
SPEAKER_01: He signed you up for it because he's making you like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purposes, to whom he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
SPEAKER_01: So he's conforming you.
SPEAKER_01: And and unfortunately, it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really difficult.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to talk about glory and tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about this kind of sanctification grace, which is really the whole rest of the now the two-thirds rest of Romans, is all about this process of A, life being hard, and then B, how you can have victory, how you can have triumph in these difficulties, these tribulations.
SPEAKER_01: That's really what sets us apart.
SPEAKER_01: So you even see it in the movie of Jesus Revolution.
SPEAKER_01: You've got you've got Chuck Smith, who is this pastor who's going nowhere, hardly has anybody in his church.
SPEAKER_01: He's an old fuddy-duddy kind of guy, and um he quite hasn't quite figured out life.
SPEAKER_01: He's got a daughter who's kind of interested in the hippies because they seem kind of cool.
SPEAKER_01: And he says to her, I don't know why these hippies don't take a bath, and he's got all these kind of comments, and then she goes, Well, why don't you give them a chance?
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Well, if you get one, I'll meet him, I'll talk to him.
SPEAKER_01: So she brings on this guy named Lonnie Frisbee.
SPEAKER_01: And so Lonnie Frisbee shows up, and um, it's this it's the actor who plays Jesus in The Chosen, so he looks like Lonnie Frisbee.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: He looks like a real hippie, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Um and then and then you got this guy named Greg Laurie, who's this young guy who's searching and he's into drugs and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the point.
SPEAKER_01: And I won't ruin it for you.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is, one of those characters doesn't quite figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: One of those characters can't doesn't have the character to take them through the anointing that actually God has on their life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's historically accurate too and true.
SPEAKER_01: So God anoints us.
SPEAKER_01: He gives some of you guys special blessings and special anointings in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got an anointing and something.
SPEAKER_01: You do, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: But if your character can't keep up with the anointing, you lose the anointing.
SPEAKER_01: You do.
SPEAKER_01: And I've seen so many, I'm old enough now to see so many fired up, excited uh young men and women that are just taking off and they're just making such an impact.
SPEAKER_01: But they don't let God, with his sanctifying grace, work on their character, and so their anointing, their empowerment surpasses their character, and man, there's a point where the gig is up, and they get revealed and they lose everything.
SPEAKER_01: It's really sad.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying, look, there's gonna be tribulation in your life, but there's actually a purpose for that.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations.
SPEAKER_01: Glory in tribulations?
SPEAKER_01: Are you crazy?
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: Glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance.
SPEAKER_01: And perseverance, character, and character hope.
SPEAKER_01: So this glory in tribulation is not that you should be happy with tribulations.
SPEAKER_01: He's not saying, oh, I had I'm so excited that I lost my baby.
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, that's stupid.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: I've seen people like that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, I think that person might need to see somebody.
SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's not glory in the tribulation, it's the glory in what the tribulation can do in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's it's looking past the tribulation to the glory of something God's doing in that that's gonna make you a more deeper person, a more character-filled person, a person with more integrity, a person who has empathy.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's how we develop empathy, right?
SPEAKER_01: We develop empathy by going through difficulties with God, partnering with God, so that we have a heart for people who go through the same dilemmas and struggles that we've had to go through.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what tribulation means Tribulation is taken from the Latin and it comes from the word tribulum, a threshing sledge, which separated grain from chaff.
SPEAKER_01: It consisted of a wooden platform studded underneath with sharp flints or iron teeth.
SPEAKER_01: As this instrument passed over the grain, the wheat was separated from the straw.
SPEAKER_01: So I saw these when I was in Israel in uh Judea.
SPEAKER_01: It was a heavy platform with these teeth underneath it, and then they take the grain, spill it out on the floor of the barn or whatever they were doing, where they were doing it, and they would put this tribulum and they would drag it, pull it, and it would pull off the chaff.
SPEAKER_01: It would pull off the straw, and they do that again and again and again to cleanse the grain so that you had the pure, you started to have the pure grain.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what tribulum really means.
SPEAKER_01: Tribulum really means pressure.
SPEAKER_01: It means pressure, man.
SPEAKER_01: It means, and this is, yeah, you're gonna hate me, hate this word, but it means crushing.
SPEAKER_01: It's God crushing us.
SPEAKER_01: That's what tribulum means.
SPEAKER_01: We tend to think of tribulation like, well, I'm preaching the gospel and I'm under tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: No, tribulation means pressure, it means crushing.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's going through things in life that aren't fair.
SPEAKER_01: It's people saying stuff about you, it's it's you just trying to do your best you can to be the best person you can be, and something happens, man.
SPEAKER_01: That's tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: That's the tribulum.
SPEAKER_01: God, he's saying, is in that and he's forming perseverance.
SPEAKER_01: He's forming character.
SPEAKER_01: He's doing something, not just good, but he's doing something better in your life than just the good of you being obedient to God.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just about obedience, it's about pressing in, pushing through, trusting God in pressure situations, in the crushing.
SPEAKER_01: So there's two, there's two symbols in the Bible that mean joy.
SPEAKER_01: One is oil, there's the oil of joy, and there is wine.
SPEAKER_01: Wine makes the heart merry.
SPEAKER_01: So oil and wine bring us joy in our life.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what Psalm 104.15 says.
SPEAKER_01: And wine makes glad the heart of man.
SPEAKER_01: Oil makes his face shine.
SPEAKER_01: So the idea behind oil, you guys, is it was a cosmetic.
SPEAKER_01: It was a cosmetic that they would put on, a woman would put on her face so that her face would shine.
SPEAKER_01: So it looked beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of you wear that stuff on your face.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's great.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's good.
SPEAKER_01: I I I like cosmetics.
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, I did it.
SPEAKER_01: Um when I was, I had a lot of acne.
SPEAKER_01: I struggled with acne when I was growing up, and there there's this, there was this brown thing you could put to sort of, you know, where people couldn't see all your zits and everything.
SPEAKER_01: But um, okay, and then in number six says the Lord bless you and keep you.
SPEAKER_01: You like that, huh?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's good.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: No, but but oil, even thousands of years ago, they used it for cosmetics, you know, for beauty.
SPEAKER_01: It's a symbol in scripture of joy.
SPEAKER_01: And in number six, it says, The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_01: The idea that God shines, he shines upon your face, and you shine, him, because of oil.
SPEAKER_01: Um, Psalm 45, 7, therefore, God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness.
SPEAKER_01: And and that oil of gladness is something that is key to getting through tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to have joy in the midst of tribulations.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Oil comes from olives.
SPEAKER_01: And wine comes from grapes, but the scriptures don't say the grape of joy.
SPEAKER_01: It actually talks about the grapes of wrath, right?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say that you'll have the joy as unto olives.
SPEAKER_01: No, what you have is that olives have to be what?
SPEAKER_01: Crushed.
SPEAKER_01: Grapes have to be crushed.
SPEAKER_01: So even metaphorically, even physiologically, there is something that the scripture says, Jesus saying, that there's joy in crushing.
SPEAKER_01: That the grapes get crushed to get the wine, the olives get crushed to get the oil.
SPEAKER_01: And God's building oil and wine in you through crushing, through difficulties, through hardships.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to I want you to learn to remind yourself when you're going through stuff, and it'll happen tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: You have to go to work.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And so you go to work, and there's gonna be crushing.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I'm glad of.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad that from Genesis 3, which Mandy and Liz are teaching right now to the women, is that I got the curse of work.
SPEAKER_01: Because first of all, I'm already I'm already created by God to do work, but then it's gonna be hard.
SPEAKER_01: I would much rather have that than labor.
SPEAKER_01: And and to see what you women have to go through because of the curse is incredible.
SPEAKER_01: But what is it we know about labor?
SPEAKER_01: Labor, to me, it's a great picture.
SPEAKER_01: That you go through labor and and you and you scream and you holler and you grit your teeth and all the things.
SPEAKER_01: I've been a part of seven of these things, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Live, you know, present, present issue, hours of it.
SPEAKER_01: Woo! You know, and you're you're going through it, but but then man, it's like the baby comes.
SPEAKER_01: And we listen, I just we I don't think we've ever talked about labor.
SPEAKER_01: We always talk about the child.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we talk about.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's a picture of tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: God takes us through tribulation because he's got a baby for you to birth, he's got something for you to birth in your life that can't come except through that labor and that hardship and that difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: He says perseverance, it's character, it's hope.
SPEAKER_01: It's those things that he's he's building into our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so, tribulation doesn't happen to you, tribulation happens for you.
SPEAKER_01: Tribulation is not something that happens to you, it's something that happens for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so God's conforming you to the image of his son.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Romans 8, 28, and 29 is saying.
SPEAKER_01: He's conforming you.
SPEAKER_01: So we call it a testimony, right?
SPEAKER_01: Test imony.
SPEAKER_01: We like the moy, but we don't like the test part.
SPEAKER_01: So this person's gonna give their testimony.
SPEAKER_01: We're hearing the I in the middle, test, I, moy.
SPEAKER_01: They're giving the moy part, but what they're talking about is a test.
SPEAKER_01: But you don't have a testimony unless you go through the test.
SPEAKER_01: Testimony, test I moany.
SPEAKER_01: That's life.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: That's life, right?
SPEAKER_01: So I want to give you three forms of suffering that that we go through.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you three forms of suffering that are part of our journey.
SPEAKER_01: The first is corrective, corrective suffering.
SPEAKER_01: The first is corrective.
SPEAKER_01: This is because you can be an idiot.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is this is you being just stupid.
SPEAKER_01: And and everybody hears stupid sometimes, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So that's sin in your life.
SPEAKER_01: That's where you have really chosen.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, I wake up in the I mean, I used to wake up in the morning with a hangover.
SPEAKER_01: Not during gymnastic season, but I mean, I that was, I can't blame, oh, I'm just blaming God because I'm throwing up, you know, and hugging the toilet or something.
SPEAKER_01: No, that's because I drank too much the night before.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're a pothead and you smoke pot all the time, then you're gonna be slower than everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: You just are.
SPEAKER_01: All the statistics show that.
SPEAKER_01: You're just gonna be slow in the uptake.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're a pothead, then don't blame God because you're slow, it's because you're an idiot and you keep smoking pot.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: So, so you take drugs, let's say, you know, whatever it is you do, you have to deal with the consequences, and God wants to correct you, and He's but He He's already corrected you because you're breaking kingdom laws, and then kingdom laws are breaking you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So, if you go and drink, you know, a ton of liquor tonight, go home and just kind of drink it up, you're gonna have a headache the next morning.
SPEAKER_01: God's correcting you by letting your body tell you, dumb.
SPEAKER_01: You're dumb.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: You need to grow up a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Grow up before you grow old.
SPEAKER_01: So that's corrective.
SPEAKER_01: And what's funny is how many Christians blame God and they'll be they'll come to me and they're like about God and everything.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, dude, you created the circumstance, and you're gonna have to get out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the difference you can either get out of it without God, or you can get out of it with partnership with God.
SPEAKER_01: I say you should choose the latter, it's smart, and you can start growing.
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of like two paths.
SPEAKER_01: You're walking down the trail, and you got two paths, and this path is really wide.
SPEAKER_01: It's nice, it's maybe it's even paved with asphalt.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And you got this beautiful path, and it looks great.
SPEAKER_01: There's no branches, there's no thorns or anything.
SPEAKER_01: And then it's gonna cross over the top of the crest of the hill.
SPEAKER_01: So you can't see the other side.
SPEAKER_01: Then here's this other one, and it's really small, and it's got a lot of bushes around it, and it might, and it seems harder, and there's and hardly anybody's been on that trail.
SPEAKER_01: And it also goes to the top of the summit and crests over.
SPEAKER_01: Here's where it is.
SPEAKER_01: So you're coming along, and all your friends are on the paved road, man, and they're going there laughing, they're having fun, and then they cross over the summit and they go down, and it's full of thistles, quicksand, thorns, and those people always come back all bloodied up and bloodshot and messed up.
SPEAKER_01: Then here's this other one, it's harder.
SPEAKER_01: Not many, you have to maybe you even have what goes sideways.
SPEAKER_01: It's a small, narrow way, and it's slippery because hardly anybody's been on it.
SPEAKER_01: Definitely not paved.
SPEAKER_01: But you cross over that summit and it's green pastures, man.
SPEAKER_01: It's living water.
SPEAKER_01: And the more you walk it, the more you drink from the living water, the healthier you get.
SPEAKER_01: Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Which one you want?
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the easy way, this is the hard way.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the easy way at first, and then it's the harder way.
SPEAKER_01: This is the hard way at the beginning, and it can get better and better as you go through life because you get smarter and smarter.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm for smart.
SPEAKER_01: I dig smart.
SPEAKER_01: I think smart is the best way to go.
SPEAKER_01: Second is constructive.
SPEAKER_01: So, first is corrective, second is constructive.
SPEAKER_01: And constructive is where all of us go through hard things.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you didn't have anything, you're you're doing the best you can.
SPEAKER_01: You're trying to be a good mom, you're trying to be a good dad, you're trying to be A good single person, you're walking in purity, or you're following the Lord, but God's going to just do stuff because He loves you and He's going to take you through hard things.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like that sculpture with the marble block, like the great artist Benavuno Cellini, who he wrote an autobiography, it's really cool.
SPEAKER_01: And he talks about the feelings that he went through when he looks at this massive marble and he's going to start chiseling away.
SPEAKER_01: So God's going to chisel away.
SPEAKER_01: But it's constructive, it's not corrective.
SPEAKER_01: It's God just making you a better person.
SPEAKER_01: It's God helping you to learn how to have some endurance in your life.
SPEAKER_01: So in our family, everybody had to have a business by the time they were 18 years old.
SPEAKER_01: So every kid in the whole family had to have a business by the time they were 18 years old.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't matter what it was, it could be.
SPEAKER_01: I think Anna was pressed flowers.
SPEAKER_01: She had pressed flowers that she glued to greeting cards, and she went through the church.
SPEAKER_01: And I think everybody in our church bought one of her greeting cards at some point at Mountain Springs.
SPEAKER_01: So we did that.
SPEAKER_01: And then different kids did different stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And some kids were a little bit more, made a lot more money than others, but everybody had to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And I hold to the philosophy, don't do for your kids what they can do for themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't, because I want them to be, I want them to be growing.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you that are like helicopter parents and you have to do everything for your kids, you're you're you're handicapping your kids sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you do that, and I'm not talking about grace and love and all that, you need to have all that great stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's really good.
SPEAKER_01: Um but there's times where they're doing dumb stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And you come in and you're the big rescuer, you're enabling what the enemy wants to do in their life, not what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you need to back up and you need to let the consequences fall so that they can learn to grow.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: And so and so that's the construction of what God's doing in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: God is teaching us and he's training us and he's chiseling away in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And you know the story of the ancient times with the silversmith and the goldsmith.
SPEAKER_01: So I've been over to North Africa and stuff, and I've seen die, but I've never seen actually a goldsmith and silversmith.
SPEAKER_01: So it's just stuff I've read.
SPEAKER_01: But sounds like they would get a fire and it'd actually be in the town square.
SPEAKER_01: They'd heat up this vat and uh with them with the heavy metals that they had put in there to get the gold and the silver out, and then they would have the dross.
SPEAKER_01: The impurities would rise to the top, and they'd skim it off, and they were looking for their their vision, their the the sight of the of the artisan, the sight of the goldsmith, the silver smith in the silver, and that's what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: All things work together for good.
SPEAKER_01: To those who love God and are called according to his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: For those to whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: So he's working, he's heating up, he's heating it up.
SPEAKER_01: He's taking us through tribulums, he's taking us through pressure so that we can look more and more like Christ and trust less in ourselves and more of him.
SPEAKER_01: So suffering is corrective, suffering is constructive, but suffering is also chosen.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is there are people that God has chosen to go through great suffering for God's greater glory.
SPEAKER_01: And we we come to the ninth chapter of John's gospel, and Jesus passes by a man born blind, and the disciples say, Master, who did sin?
SPEAKER_01: This man or his parents?
SPEAKER_01: And then Jesus said, Neither has this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifest in him.
SPEAKER_01: So God sometimes takes special people through very difficult times and difficult circumstances because they're chosen by him to bring great glory to God by their responses to him.
SPEAKER_01: Helen Keller, born blind and mute, once said, character cannot be formed in ease and quiet.
SPEAKER_01: Only through experience of trial and suffering, can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it you could go in some many different ways, but to study Helen Keller's life is a great thing.
SPEAKER_01: Nick Bucevic, who was born without arms or legs, and I've read both of his books, Life Without Limits, and his second book, Unstoppable.
SPEAKER_01: When you look at the picture of Nick on the front, and I've not met Nick, I want to meet Nick someday.
SPEAKER_01: I've had opportunities to meet him, but various reasons I haven't met him.
SPEAKER_01: But he's on a surfboard, man.
SPEAKER_01: The guy's got no arms and no legs, and he's surfing.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's a dude, man.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And he it was no it was no sin.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, all I would say this, all hardship has some element of sin in it, but it wasn't Nick's sin.
SPEAKER_01: But he's born without arms.
SPEAKER_01: Without legs.
SPEAKER_01: At one point he he planned to commit suicide.
SPEAKER_01: And then he had a he had a revelation of God.
SPEAKER_01: He had a revelation of God's grace in his life.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what he said.
SPEAKER_01: If you can't get a miracle, become one.
SPEAKER_01: For some of you out here that are feeling like it's the worst day of your life or you're going through something really hard, you might want to read Unstoppable.
SPEAKER_01: Read that book.
SPEAKER_01: Read uh Life Without Limits.
SPEAKER_01: Great books.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just any of us looking at what we go through and to see what Nick's been through.
SPEAKER_01: How he trained himself to speak.
SPEAKER_01: How he trained himself to be an entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_01: How he trained himself to make friends and to be a friend to others.
SPEAKER_01: That's his message.
SPEAKER_01: His message is faith in action.
SPEAKER_01: That's his whole point is faith in action.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but we also glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance, character, character, hope.
SPEAKER_01: Now, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.
SPEAKER_01: So there's this hope, church, that's from the Holy Spirit that's within you.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a hope of glory, that's verse two, or the hope and the joy that we have because we've been justified by faith, which is verse one, he's saying there's a different kind of hope, and this is a hope that in our present circumstances, in our present pain, God's doing something in us to make us different, to transform us, because now the Spirit is within us, and it's the inward work of the Spirit making us look more and more like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What would happen in our culture if we as believers, let's just start at the road at Chapel Hills, if 1,500 or 2,000 of us, whatever we are, if we just tried as best we could through the power of the Spirit to partner with God, that today, just today, and then when it comes tomorrow, just tomorrow, just the next day, just one day at a time, said I'm gonna partner with God no matter what happens today.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna triumph in any circumstance.
SPEAKER_01: I have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: I am wired for battle.
SPEAKER_01: I am wired for conflict.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, you are not wired for peace.
SPEAKER_01: People, most people in peace and prosperity don't do well.
SPEAKER_01: They just don't.
SPEAKER_01: That's why these trust babies, these men and women that, you know, they get the big trust and they got millions of dollars, and it just comes in every month, they don't have to work, they're the most unhappy people in the world, most of them.
SPEAKER_01: But you show me somebody who's got to work, you show somebody who's got to dive in, dig in, work hard, partner with God, pray, fast, seek the Lord, they're the happiest people in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're wired for conflict, you're wired for hardship and difficulties in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And you can do it.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying that through the power of the Spirit, there's now this hope, and this hope in our spirit is what God's doing through through his spirit being poured out into our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: So Jim Cooley, you know, fell over uh two weeks ago, has been in the hospital.
SPEAKER_01: And this is one of Nancy's texts to me.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Quote, it's been most devastating, but our God is a big God.
SPEAKER_01: He never wastes something so bad to not use it for his good.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_01: That's faith in action.
SPEAKER_01: That's not just faith in the theory, that's faith in action through hardship.
SPEAKER_01: Nick Bushevik said, putting faith in action is about believing and achieving.
SPEAKER_01: It's about having faith in yourself, your talents, your purpose, and most of all in God's love and his divine plan in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, character matters.
SPEAKER_01: Character really matters.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we look at the political landscape, we look at the uh scientific landscape, we look at what's happening in our culture.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the culture is, they don't know it, they don't even know how to express it, but they're looking for men and women of character.
SPEAKER_01: And when you find men and women of character, you find men and women that have been through hard things.
SPEAKER_01: They've just been through hard things.
SPEAKER_01: And they've weathered those storms, they've pressed through the storm with a belief that God is working within them to make them more and more Christ-like.
SPEAKER_01: A man who was prone to angry outbursts and was told many times that he had a problem with anger, he commented, Look, I'm never angry when things go the way I planned.
SPEAKER_01: So I where I fly fish sometimes, I'm in this canyon, and you'll see a mountain climber.
SPEAKER_01: And I have zero interest in being a mountain climber, but I have great interest in watching mountain climbers because I think that's really cool what they do.
SPEAKER_01: But these guys were out there, and these were actually some, I found out later from special forces guys that were doing some training.
SPEAKER_01: So they had the cords and all the stuff that they do with mountain climbing.
SPEAKER_01: And what I noticed is that when you look at a mountain climber, they're up there, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And they go so slow.
SPEAKER_01: It's unbelievably slow.
SPEAKER_01: So I'll be sitting there, I'll catch three fish before I see the guy go like six inches, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And uh, that's why I like fly fishing a lot better.
SPEAKER_01: But but if you're the thing about mountain climbing, if you're if you're climbing a cliff, it's like this.
SPEAKER_01: That's tribula, man.
SPEAKER_01: That's tribulation right there.
SPEAKER_01: But what you do to get hope is you look back.
SPEAKER_01: Oh what?
SPEAKER_01: I was I I've gone 50 feet.
SPEAKER_01: I've gone 75 feet, I've gone 100 feet.
SPEAKER_01: And so what you're what's before you is a tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: But the hope that rises in the mountain climber, I would think, is that he looks back and sees the progress that he's made.
SPEAKER_01: And so some of you here this morning, you need to look back.
SPEAKER_01: You need to look back and go, look where, look what God's done over the last year.
SPEAKER_01: Look what God's done over.
SPEAKER_01: That'll that stirs up hope.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just look at what's happening in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: That's like super hard.
SPEAKER_01: And it's it can be actually depressing.
SPEAKER_01: But but take a step back and go, wow, a year ago we were in this, or two years ago we were going through that.
SPEAKER_01: And look how God showed his faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: That then causes not the salvation hope, but the sanctification hope of the grace of God, his present power working in you, and you can persevere.
SPEAKER_01: You can keep going, you can take that next six inches because you look back and you've gone a hundred feet in your life.
SPEAKER_01: So character is tethered to hope.
SPEAKER_01: And hope is tethered to God's love.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 4.
SPEAKER_01: But we have this treasure in earth and vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
SPEAKER_01: We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed.
SPEAKER_01: We are perplexed but not in despair.
SPEAKER_01: We are persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
SPEAKER_01: For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that Paul's saying, bring it on.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He's got a bring it on kind of mentality.
SPEAKER_01: Like, hey, every time I go through all these despairing, distressing, difficult situations, God's power is being formed in me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm more powerful because I'm going through more struggle because Christ is manifesting his power in me through the grace of God that I would not have manifested if I wasn't going through what I'm going through.
unknown: Let's go, bro.
SPEAKER_01: You get it?
SPEAKER_01: This is really important.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you triumph in persecution.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you triumph in the tribulum, the pressure of life, as you start to go, wait.
SPEAKER_01: So God's forming God in me by chipping away at me to get less of me and more him.
SPEAKER_01: It's I've been crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
SPEAKER_01: And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who's delivered up for me.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying that you every time you let yourself be crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And as you let yourself be crucified with Christ, he forms Christ in you.
SPEAKER_01: And it's less of you, and it's more of him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he gives us this last process of how he does it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: He gives us the strength.
SPEAKER_01: For scarcely for a righteous man will one die.
SPEAKER_01: Yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die.
SPEAKER_01: But God, he demonstrated his own love toward us.
SPEAKER_01: And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_01: Much more than that.
SPEAKER_01: Having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
SPEAKER_01: For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been re shall be saved by his life.
SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.
SPEAKER_01: So it is that love of God through our reconciled relationship with God, that he comes where we have no strength, and he replaces our weakness with his strength.
SPEAKER_01: That's the present sanctification grace of God, and we start to triumph.
SPEAKER_01: We start to have victory.
SPEAKER_01: And you can.
SPEAKER_01: You can.
SPEAKER_01: We can.
SPEAKER_01: We need each other.
SPEAKER_01: And if we did it this week, talk about a kingdom revolution.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: We can bring a kingdom revolution to this county just by just by partnering with Christ as we go through life.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Foreign for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholdonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.